QUICK NOTE: THERE IS KINDA GORY DETAILS INVOLVING THE EYE SO BEWARE. SKIP OVER IT. Also, short chapter, I know, but I will be posting more today. I've realized the more I put that kinda expectation on myself, the more I put off writing. Finally finally finally, here y'all go! :)

The crows were at it again. They circled around the trees towering above her and glared down at her with the intent of a vulture. As much as Sarada tried to ignore the ominous feeling in her bones, she couldn't deny that it was, in fact, still there and showed no signs of going away anytime soon. The uncomfortable feeling wasn't even that much of a feeling, just an odd kind of itch, or pressure pressing down on her head. Weird.

And Sarada couldn't seem to get over her newfound emotional capabilities, or rather, disabilities. She thought back to the less-than-satisfactory discussion with her parents, focused on the hurt she had felt and the gravity of each insult that her father had spit out-intentionally or not. But there was nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Nothing.

Sarada Uchiha tried smiling, and it didn't carry the same exhausting weight of her forced ones. The weight was gone, and she didn't know how to feel about that now that the initial joy had faded. She shifted in her seat on the wet, fallen log before looking back down at the dirt, where the rain beat mercilessly into the earth.

Too many thoughts seemed to race in her head, but the sound of the rain dripping down, pouring now, made her eyelids droop close for minutes at a time. Her eyes hurt.

How long had she been sitting here? An hour? Two? Three? She had forgotten to bring anything in case she got bored, being in the moment and all, but there was no way she was going back to her house to get them. She wasn't ready to face them; not yet. Perhaps not ever.

You'll never be able to face them. It's time to let go, for Christ's sake. Go somewhere.

She considered the idea. So much has happened in the span of...what? A week? Two weeks? She didn't even know anymore, each day felt like another year off her life.

..But, Jesus Christ, she needed to think about this. Just leaving? What about Boruto? The team? Her parents? The Hokage? Everyone? Hell, her parents may be mad right now, sure, but if Sarada disappeared, they wouldn't just forget about her.

Would they?

Wouldn't they?

Nothing. Even the voice didn't seem to affect her anymore. Then again, why was she really even trying to get a rise out of herself in the first place? Wasn't this what she had wanted all along? Or was she selfish enough to not even give this new state..a chance?

Her chest felt hollow, and Sarada kept wondering, seriously considering, if she had any organs in her body anymore, because it sure didn't feel like it. She sat deathly still for a few seconds, contemplating, really feeling the gravity of the situation, when the log suddenly started scratching at her legs with an almost needle-like point. Points that were now scritching, biting deeper and deeper into her flesh, and she sat there as long as she could stand it before standing with a single gasp and, suddenly, the feeling was gone. She looked back down at the log, and stared confusedly at her bare thighs and black-clothes knees. Nothing. It had just been another illusion. Those were feeling more and more real, it seemed.

With that, she shrugged and finally stepped away from her seat. Her bottom hurt from sitting on wood so long, but so did her entire body. The adrenaline rush was long gone.

Then, an ambush.

What felt like hundreds of the biggest crows she's ever seen swooped from their position above and flew right into her. She yelped and screamed and flailed as a few claws got stuck in her hair and started to yank, others latching onto her arms and shoulders and legs. A storm of black feathers completely obscured her vision for a full minute without being able to breathe, until, finally, an opening-

"Enough!"

The crows were gone, not a single black feather in sight. But in their place stood the brunette girl who had been tormenting her from the beginning. She was smiling at her. Waving with her right hand and her left resting casually on her hip. The girl who had caused all this pain in the first place was right in front of her. The girl who needed to be brought down to her knees in order to understand the weight of what she'd done. The girl who came into her life and messed it all up. The girl who just wouldn't leave her the fuck alone and needed to be brought down and brought down now..

"Sasuke says hello. He didn't get the chance to say so after you fled like a little bitch."

She was so done.

"You bitch!" Sarada snarled, leaping to the girl in front of her and shoving her down, feeling twisted satisfaction fuel her forward once she heard the girl's scream. She had been waiting for so long to hear that single sound. And now she needed more.

At some point, the brunette got up and started to frantically crawl away, hands groping for something to latch onto, to which Sarada felt herself lose her humanity. It was easy, really, now that her moral judgment was out the window and her emotions were hollow. This felt good.

The raven bit into the brunette's arm, tearing as much as she could, red eyes fixed on the other's that were overflowing with tears. She loaded her punch and smashed the girl's head into the ground time after time again, and the vivid red was a sight to behold.

One of her eyes had popped, and lay sullen in the girl's eye socket. Clear liquid and little streams of blood trickled down her face, her nose obviously broken. Blood also draining from her ear, and Sarada started to panic.

Her wheezing breaths stilled along with her heart when the face beneath her changed to the one of her mother's. Then, she screamed.